Door operating mechanism



1955 R. P. MANSMANN DOOR OPERATING MECHANISM INVENTOR.

aw v C j7 Zy v Filed June 16, 1954 United States Patent DOOR OPERATING MECHANISM Raymond P. Mansmann, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Application June 16, 1954, Serial No. 437,193

2 Claims. (Cl. 268-48) This invention relates to a roller operated door slide mechanism for rapidly opening and closing the double doors of refrigerated truck bodies.

The object of this invention is to provide manually operated door mechanism for a pair of truck doors which can be opened or closed with little efiort or attention by the truck operator.

It is a further object of my invention to accelerate or control the movement of a pair of refrigerator truck doors by a manually operated door mechanism designed for ease of operation and having an eccentrically mounted spring applied to the mechanism in a manner to assist, and if necessary, complete both the door opening and closing movements.

These and other objects of my invention will become more apparent from a consideration of the accompanying drawings in which like reference characters designate like parts and in which:

Figure 1 is a vertical elevation of the upper portion of a truck body showing the doors and lever operating mechanism in extended or open position.

Figure 2 is a similar view of the truck showing the doors in a closed position.

Figure 3 is a partial side elevation of the lever operating mechanism and the door mounting structure, taken at lines 3-3 of Figure 1.

Figure 4 is an enlarged partial section taken along the lines 4--4 of Figure 1.

Numeral 2 indicates a wall within the truck body that is located either between the cab and the refrigerator compartment or within the compartment itself, and is provided with doors 4 and 6 arranged to slide toward and from each other in order to control opening A in wall 2. The doors are supported at the top by toggle link 8 having rollers 10 attached at the upper end that are guided and held in place by rails 12. The doors may be guided at the bottom by any suitable means such as guide channels, not shown.

Slide tracks 14 and 16 are fixed to the upper part of the doors so that flanged guide rollers 18 and 20 of levers 22 and 24 may move vertically therein upon movement of lever handle 26 to control the opening and closing of the doors. The levers 22 and 24 are pivoted to the upper end of truck wall at 28 and 30 and they are connected together by tie rod 32 at the pivot pins of clevises 34 and 36.

A spring mounting 38 for lever 22 is eccentrically located with respect to the pin 28 at the open and closed position of roller 18 so that a spring 40 can be connected to the lower end of lever 22 to bias the lever toward both the open and closed position, as seen in Figures 1 and 2.

The pivot distances between clevis 34 and pin 28 and clevis 36 and pin 30, as well as the pivot distance between rollers 18 and 20 and their respective pins, are all equal so that the doors 4 and 6 will travel the same distance when a force is applied to the levers.

When the truck operator pushes on the handle 36, the doors 4 and 6 are moved in the desired direction by levers 22 and 24 turning about their fulcrum points so that the rollers attach to the lower end thereof moving in fixed slide guides 14 and 16 assert the necessary fulcrum action to move the doors. When doors 4 and 6 are moving toward their open position, as shown in Figure 1, or before they reach their final closed position, as shown in Figure 2, spring 40 asserts a force on the lower end of lever 22 to speed up the movement of the doors and then provide a holding force to maintain the doors in either position. As can be seen from the construction, the operator can uniformly move both doors to an open or closed position by a momentary application of force to handle 26.

I claim::

1. A door operating mechanism for a pair of sliding doors mounted for sliding movement in a common plane comprising a pair of slide track brackets fixed to the upper end of said doors, a pair of spaced levers mounted on fixed p'ivots above the doors having flanged rollers attached thereto at equal distances from the pivots and mounted for sliding movement in said slide track brackets, a connecting link between the levers which is attached to an end of one of the levers and to an intermediate point of the other lever at equal distances from the pivots of the levers, the fixed pivot for said one of said levers being located in a horizontal plane below that in which the fixed pivot of said other lever is located and the flanged roller on said one of said levers travelling in a vertical path that lies below the vertical path in which the flanged roller on said other lever travels, whereby an angular movement of one of said levers will move the attached rollers equal distances in said slide track brackets to move both of the doors an equal distance in their common plane.

2. The combination of claim 1 wherein a spring mounting means is fixed above the door mechanism in a position that is eccentric to the pivot pin and roller mount of said one lever in the open and closed position of the doors, and a spring means attached between the roller mount of said one lever and the mounting means to bias the door levers in the desired direction when the doors are near their open and closed positions.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 491,121 Mueller Feb. 7, 1893 802,270 Deaderick Oct. 17, 1905 934,529 Holcomb Sept. 21, 1909 979,001 Goodknight Dec. 20, 1910 1,339,671 Rowntree May 11, 1920 1,572,218 Meyer Feb. 9, 1926 2,255,769 Gallagher et a1. Sept. 16, 1941 2,277,283 Wallace Mar. 24, 1942 

